A Thanksgiving Foil, From Sri Lanka
A recipe from a country that knows side dishes + Bottling happiness in Sicily
Thank you so much for reading Californiavore. If you are enjoying what you are reading, please consider sharing with a friend who might also like a dose of California sunshine. And if you haven’t already, please subscribe (it’s free!) so you never miss a recipe, story, or wine recommendation.
Here is where I admit I don’t like Thanksgiving food. Never have. Days of cooking, a table full of casserole dishes, and somehow it all ends up a variation on sweet and mushy - an American tradition evolved into culinary pablum best befitting those without teeth or tastebuds.
Maybe that is why ever since I moved away from home, I relished any opportunity to not abide by the expectations of the holiday. If my husband and I felt the need for a bird, ours would be duck. Should there be potatoes, ours would be crisp. For vegetables, there might be kale salad or pan-fried brussels sprouts doused in balsamic. Anything but a green bean casserole.
It’s not that any one traditional dish is bad on its own (except for maybe mashed potatoes), it is just that there is so little differentiation on texture, there tends to be an overabundance of starch, and yes, it all veers a tad sweet. It is worth considering whether the sacrifice of one sacred side dish in favor of a recipe just a bit different – spicy, sour, crunchy, crisp - could elevate the whole affair.
If we were to choose one, I’d nominate the green bean casserole for permanent replacement. I am not sure anyone, even a 50’s era housewife, ever really needed flaccid, canned green beans to be smothered in creamy, condensed mushroom soup, topped with packaged, fried onions and cooked to the point of oblivion. What a waste of a perfectly good vegetable.
Thinking of how best showcase the bean and to balance the large spread of dishes and flavors, my mind wandered to, of all places, Sri Lanka. Not unlike banchan, the tiny dishes that proliferate on a Korean table around a main course, a meal of “curry rice” in Sri Lanka will come with one main curry, say black pork, with rice, and multiple preparations of vegetables, sambols and mallungs (a kind of cooked sambol). Once, on a road trip across central Sri Lanka, we pulled over at an open aired, roadside restaurant expecting little but a quick bite to eat, only to find ourselves on either side of a table with no less than seventeen distinct dishes. The sambols and mallungs were the glue that brought the dishes together, a refreshing, bracing foil to the many richly seasoned recipes on display.
Consulting an old Sri Lankan cookbook, I found a recipe that I think would do the trick for the holidays. Green beans are sliced thin, cooked for a short time over a low heat with onions, mild spices, and chili only until tender. Still bright green, with a bit of a bite, this mixture is folded with grated coconut and left to serve at room temperature. It is the sort of dish you can make anytime during the day, or an easy one to put a relative to work with the chopping. A squeeze of lime right before service and you have a nuanced dish that sits somewhere between condiment and warm salad. Salty, spicy and tangy, it will liven up a potato, sweet or mashed, and should you make a turkey, it will work with that too.
Recipe
Green Bean and Coconut Mallung (Bonchi Mallung)
Adapted from The Exotic Tastes of Paradise, Felicia Wakwella Sørenson
This recipe takes about 10 minutes of chopping and 7 minutes of cooking. It tastes even better at room temperature so exactly the kind of side dish you can squeeze into your holiday preparations whenever you have a free stove and a few extra minutes.
1 lb. green beans, trimmed
1 medium onion
1 – 2 Thai chiles
2 T. vegetable oil
¾ tsp. sea salt
½ tsp. black pepper, ground
¼ tsp. ground turmeric
¼ cup. Water
½ cup desiccated coconut
Fresh limes for serving
Trim and discard stem ends of green beans. Slice green beans finely into rounds about ½ cm long. Finely mince onion and 1-2 Thai chilies depending on how spicy you like it.
Heat oil a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the onions, chiles, salt, pepper, and turmeric. Stir for 60 seconds until spices are evenly distributed and fragrant. Add chopped green beans and water, stirring to combine. Once simmering, reduce heat to medium-low and continue to cook for about six minutes, until the green beans are tender but still crisp and the liquid has mostly evaporated.
Remove from heat and stir in coconut. Serve at room temperature. Squeeze lime juice to taste just before serving if desired (Note: do not add the lime juice until you are ready to serve or it can discolor the beans. For the brightest color, wait to juice until the last minute.)
To Drink…
I Vigneri di Salvo Foti Vino Rosso, Mt. Etna, Sicily 2022
“We should remember one thing in order to make good wine, you need great grapes.” Growing up in in Sicily in the shadow of Mt. Etna, this was a mantra of winemaker Salvo Foti’s household passed on from his grandparents and his great grandfather before that. It explains why his winemaking starts first with the utmost care of the vineyard – both the vines and the people who work there. I Vigneri, the name of this fresh vino rosso, translates to “the workers”. Foti’s personal project is a way of continuing a tradition of generational knowledge, passing down the particular, skilled vineyard work from the older generations to the young. Through giving dignity to workers he is creating happiness in the vineyard which he believes translates to happiness in the bottle.
I can say I was very happy drinking this 2022 Vino Rosso. A blend of two traditional Sicilian grapes, Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio, this wine is made from younger vines farmed organically. After harvest the grapes are foot trodden, allowed to macerate with skin and stems for eight days, then fermented in underground amphorae for six months in a process called palmento vinification (who else wants to stomp on grapes after watching this video?)
As long as I’m blowing up the whole traditional Thanksgiving menu, why not serve a Sicilian wine? I love the reds of Mt. Etna for the blend of old world style and elegance. Pure fruit expressions and balanced acidity actually make this a super star for turkey and a variety of festive season dishes. At only $38, it is just enough of a splurge but not so much that you will feel bad putting a few bottles around, because you will drink them. And who couldn’t use a little happiness in a bottle at the holidays?
Available from Vino Carta and other suppliers. For a fascinating video on Foti’s philosophy and the winemaking process, click here.